Turning SharePoint from good to great

I touched a while back on the problem with SharePoint trying to be all things to all people and in our offering to clients this has recently taken shape in a meaningful way. With 100 million (yes, 100,000,000) or more seats sold over the last some years there is no getting away that SharePoint has a powerful place in the business software landscape.

The CEO of our author partner - FlowCentric - has published a white paper on turning SharePoint from Good to Great. This harks back to my previous points that it attempts to be all things to all people and in doing so fails to be great at anything.

In reality as we see Microsoft mature its marketing message it appears to move away from the quite exact terms in 2007 of "Streamline Processes" and "Business Intelligence" to more generic terms in 2010 of "Composites" and "Insights". Reading between the lines this suggests to me an acknowledgement that all-things-to-all people is not a viable path to success. Rather it shows an acceptance that SharePoint is a framework and perhaps the plumbing that underpins an array solution sets delivering outcomes to end users.

In the area of Streamline Processes/Composites this allows for and supports the existence of specialist fit-for-purpose tools to address composite areas across the business whilst standing firmly on the foundations that SharePoint brings in the server layer.

So how do we turn it from good to great? By bringing worthwhile and tangible benefits to the key stakeholders - more control for the IT department, better and more visible process outcomes for the business, less confusion for end users.

Get a copy of the whitepaper "FlowCentric turns SharePoint from Good to Great" here.